Adventure Gamers - Forums
You are here: Home → Forum Home → Gaming → Adventure → Thread
Post Marker Legend:
-
New posts -
No new posts
Currently online
Your Best/Worst Voice Acting in AGs
Four questions
(VA/VO = Voice Acting, Voice Overs).
1) Best VA in AG ever.
2) Worst VA in AG ever.
3) Average or below average game , redeemed by Great VA.
4) Great game spoiled by bad VA.
1. The Last Express.
Let me think about 2 3 4. 
See you around, wolf. Nerissa
Four questions
(VA/VO = Voice Acting, Voice Overs).
1) Best VA in AG ever.
2) Worst VA in AG ever.
3) Average or below average game , redeemed by Great VA.
4) Great game spoiled by bad VA.
I really think that in all of those categories that there’s far more than 1 contender for the best/worst etc! (i.e. I don’t think you can single out just one for the best etc .....) But nominations that spring to mind immediately are (but might think of others later!):
1 Broken Sword 1, Gabriel Knight 1 & the original MI series
2 Carte Blanche & Chronicles of the Sword
3 The CSI & Law & Order series
I’ll have to think about 4!
1. Discworld II: Missing Presumed…!? and Grim Fandango
2. Psycho Killer
3. Runaway: A Twist of Fate
4. Gabriel Knight 1
Currently playing: Ever 17, The Space Bar
1) Best VA in AG ever: Could name many here, but one of my favourites is Duckman, a game with stellar voice acting, featuring Tim Curry, among others.
2) Worst VA in AG ever: Without a doubt “Drascula: The Vampire Strikes Back”. It’s so unbelievably bad that it’s almost funny at first, but the novelty effect wears off quite quickly. It’s the only game ever where I ended up turning the voices off.
Let me think about 3-4.
Duckman: Can you believe it? Five hundred bucks for a parking ticket?
Cornfed Pig: You parked in a handicapped zone.
Duckman: Who cares? Nobody parks there anyway, except for the people who are supposed to park there and, hell, I can outrun them anytime.
1) Best—the one that comes to mind for me is Curse of Monkey Island. Regardless of how you felt about the interpretation of the characters in Curse, it’s hard to argue that the voice acting wasn’t extremely well done. I don’t think an adventure game has made me laugh out loud as much as that one did, and I chock it up mostly to fantastic writing and voice acting.
2) Worst—I hate to rag on my fellow indie studios, but the game that most turned me off solely due to bad voice acting was Al Emmo. I can overlook things like recording quality issues, and even acting quality (to a degree), but that character’s original hyper-grating voice can only be chocked up to an ill-considered design decision. It was the first time that a voice acting issue actually made me stop playing a game.
“Redeemed” and “ruined” are way too strong of words for me, since I can overlook a lot when it comes to voice acting, so I’m going to say “improved” and “soured” for 3 and 4.
3) Below-average game improved by great VA—I could include any number of Telltale games here (except Sam & Max—I never liked their choice of actors for those characters), but the one that comes immediately to mind is Back to the Future. Stupidly easy puzzles, invisible walls galore, obviously recycled art assets, bland story, but by god some damn good voice acting. It’s hard to argue with Christopher Lloyd’s reprisal of Doc Brown or the fantastic MJ Fox impressionist.
4) Great game soured by bad VA—I’m going to go with Flight of the Amazon Queen. It’s a classic game that I’ve always enjoyed, but the voice acting is probably the game’s weakest point, and it’s what sticks in my mind more than anything else.
I´ll just answer to the first question, Grim Fandango and GK 1.
Grim Fandango: Tony Plana did an amazing job as Manny Calavera (There are videos of him on youtube where 90% of the comments are made by people who played Grim and wanted to see who is the voice of Manny). It wasn´t just him there were Glottis, Carla, Meche who were voiced by great actors, but Tony Plana was incredibly good in this game.
GK 1:Tim Curry´s performance in this game is legendary, even though it is considered over the top by some gamers. Mosely, DR. John, all had great voice actors, but I specially liked Leah Remini as Grace, I think she was excellent in this game.
2) Keepsake. The cursed guy’s overdone whining really hurts your motivation to help him, making me feel annoyed with the main character for enabling someone who should pull himself together first. But the worst voice goes to the absurdly stereotyped Italian accent on the merchant.
The golden age of mathematics - that was not the age of Euclid, it is ours. -Cassius Jackson Keyser
I´ll just answer to the first question, Grim Fandango and GK 1.
Grim Fandango: Tony Plana did an amazing job as Manny Calavera (There are videos of him on youtube where 90% of the comments are made by people who played Grim and wanted to see who is the voice of Manny). It wasn´t just him there were Glottis, Carla, Meche who were voiced by great actors, but Tony Plana was incredibly good in this game.
GK 1:Tim Curry´s performance in this game is legendary, even though it is considered over the top by some gamers. Mosely, DR. John, all had great voice actors, but I specially liked Leah Remini as Grace, I think she was excellent in this game.
I quite agree. I really love Leah Remini in GK.
1) GF = Not only best in AG but one of the best ever in games.
2) Culpainnata and one other game (i forgot the name will update).
3) Philip Marlowe = VA and writing are classic, decent Art but hardly any good gameplay.
There is another game called Nightlong Conspiracy. (must play for VA and story only)
4) I hated the english dubs of DanganRonpa2, atrocious.
I’d say all of the voiced LucasArts adventure games, not just Grim Fandango. Think of Dominic Armato as Guybrush in Monkey Island 3 or Roy Conrad as Ben in Full Throttle, and many great supporting characters.
For a non-comedy game, The Last Express may be the best overall. Every voice was excellent.
I think the worst voice acting I’ve heard is the English version of The Watchmaker. The original Italian version may have been fine, but the English version would have been better with subtitles.
I loved The Ghost Pirates of Vooju Island voice acting, and I give it my vote!
also The Night of the Rabbit is somewhere there THERE but tGPoVI is just better, or lets say the best!
I’ll second that the lucas arts classics really were excellent when it came to voicing. Grim Fandango, and comi indeed are hallmarks of awesome when it comes to this oh and DOTT. oh my god. Full throttle too and oh well all of them.
I couldn’t stand the depressing voice of sadwick, so that had me turn the whispered world off before the adventure even really started off, which is a shame. I don’t think this was a matter of poor acting, merely the fact that I had no fun playing such a downright depressing character. So maybe the casting was excellent, I don’t know.
I had similar issues with deponia, the actors felt pretty good, but rufus felt like such a rude jerk, I couldn’t stand being around him, much less playing as him. Again, difficult to know if it was the acting or the script that turned me off. Thin line.
To each his own!
I too love the cast of the first GK game, though I would agree that Tim curry sort of overdoes his job sometimes. But maybe that’s what makes the character so strong and memorable? Maybe that’s not a bad thing that it’s a little over the top.
Sorry for not following the thread-format btw. I prefer rambling.
Now developing: The Journey Down: Chapter Three
For some reason, I can’t stand the voice of the voice actress of Nancy Drew. I’ve only ever played one ND game but her voice was so awful that I couldn’t finish and I’m not buying another game in the series. If the PR about another game proudly states that she’s doing the voice overs I will avoid that game. It’s not the acting, I think, to be honest I haven’t really paid attention if she’s any good at portraying emotions, just the voice itself gives me the shivers.
Madre de Dios, es el Pollo Diablo!
Wow, these questions are really hard…
So many games qualify for “best VA” (most LucasArts games, both TLJ games, L.A. Noire, etc.), and honestly, I can’t really think of any that would qualify for “worst” (even the Dutch localisations of Professor Layton aren’t that bad, heck not even Cedric the Owl is)...
Also, VA is such a minor aspect of games that I can’t see how that alone can lift a game up (I mean, Jack Orlando had great VA and great production values overall but a weak game is still a weak game despite that), or bring it down completely (games like The Space Bar suffered more from bad sound mixing than bad VA so it doesn’t qualify either).
I’m sitting this one out… 
The truth can’t hurt you, it’s just like the dark: it scares you witless but in time you see things clear and stark. - Elvis Costello
Maybe this time I can be strong, but since I know who I am, I’m probably wrong. Maybe this time I can go far, but thinking about where I’ve been ain’t helping me start. - Michael Kiwanuka
While there are many great voice acting adventure games, I believe that we should probably mention those that really excel in that department, lifting the game in a better level by the VA alone.
Like Portal 1/2 for example.
Or, most rescently, The Stanley Parable.
You are here: Home → Forum Home → Gaming → Adventure → Thread
